It takes one music icon to know one.
Nile Rodgers, the legendary producer and Stylish bandleader, worshiped Sly Stone lengthy earlier than he turned mates with the funk pioneer, who handed away at 82 on Monday, June 9.
And he has the receipts to show it.
“I still to this day have my ticket [from when] I saw Sly & the Family Stone at the Schaefer Music Festival in Central Park,” Rodgers, 72, solely instructed The Publish on the pink carpet of the Songwriters Corridor of Fame induction ceremony on Thursday at NYC’s Marriott Marquis.
“Check this out — the price of the ticket? One dollar. General admission was one dollar. I still have it. It was that great of a day to me,” he mentioned.
And that’s not the one method that Stone took a younger Rodgers larger.
“I remember when he released, I don’t know if it was the second album or the first album, I remember going to my friend’s house — he was the only one who could afford the album — and we all sat around smoking hash and listening to the record all day,” he recalled.
As destiny would have it, the Songwriters Corridor of Fame chairman would find yourself assembly and bonding with the genius behind Sly & the Household hits similar to “Dance to the Music,” On a regular basis Folks,” and “Family Affair.”
“Later on in life, I became friends with Sly in California. It was really sad for me because he was living in a car,” he mentioned. “So every night we would meet at the China Club when it moved to Los Angeles, and we would talk, and for some reason, we became really close.”
Actually, Stone requested Rodgers to be the music director for the Sly & the Household Stone tribute on the 2006 Grammys that included Maroon 5, John Legend, Steven Tyler and Joss Stone — in addition to a quick look by the funk god himself.
One other legendary producer, Jimmy Jam, recalled sampling Sly & the Household Stone’s 1970 chart-topper “Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)” on Janet Jackson’s 1989 hit “Rhythm Nation.”
“I don’t think people really put that together,” he instructed The Publish. “For me, it was so apparent that it’s Sly. However he was an amazing affect, [and] nonetheless continues to be. His music is singular.
“And his influence [was] not only me but certainly on Prince in the way that he made his band up — like, it was multiracial, multi-gender,” mentioned the previous Prince protégé. “All of that came from Sly.”
Stone’s affect on Rodgers was formative, too.
“Honestly, to me, Sly is on the same level as [John] Coltrane, Miles [Davis], Charlie Parker, Nina Simone, all the people I grew up with. Sly was my R&B example of that,” he mentioned.
Certainly, with Sly & the Household Stone, Rodgers mentioned that Stone “changed music.”
“They changed the way that America saw black musicians,” he mentioned. “They changed everything.”
